1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic analyzer in which a sample such as serum, urine or the like taken out of a patient and a reagent necessary to analyze a given component contained in this sample are dispensed into a reaction vessel such as a cuvette or test tube to prepare a test liquid, and this test liquid is measured after a predetermined reaction time period to perform quantitative analysis of the given component contained in the sample.
2. Description of the Related Art
Usually the above mentioned automatic analyzer is constructed to perform the analyses of a plurality of different components. Such an apparatus is generally called a multi-item analyzer. In the multi-item analyzer, a plurality of different kinds of reagents necessary for different analyses are contained in different reagent containers having the same shape and size and these reagent containers are arranged on a turn table at a predetermined equal interval in order to index any desired reagent containers into a reagent sucking position. Amounts of the reagents dispensed from the reagent containers into reaction vessels differ from each other depending on analytic items and analyzing conditions, and spread over a wide range of 25 .mu.l to 400 .mu.l.
In addition, there is such a case in which in the reagent containers on the turn table, concentrated reagents which are used after dilution with diluting liquids during dispensing and non-concentrated reagents which are called general reagents are present in a mixed manner. Incidentally, under the same analyzing condition, a volume of 10 ml to 20 ml is allowable in the case of the concentrated reagent, while a volume of 50 ml to 100 ml is necessary in the case of the general reagent.
As described above, when the analytic items and the analyzing conditions are different, or when the concentrated reagents and the general reagents are present on the turn table in a mixed manner, the user sometimes suffers a lack of a necessary reagent on the turn table and occurrence of necessity to frequently exchange reagent containers depending on analytic items. When a lack of a reagent occurs, the analyzing operation must be interrupted. This apparently decreases the efficiency of the analyzer.
In addition, the reagent containers having the same shape and size are arranged on the reagent table at the predetermined interval. That is to say, a reagent container containing a reagent for an item which requires a smaller amount of a reagent occupies the same space on the reagent table as that occupied by another reagent container containing a reagent for a test item using a larger amount of reagent. This causes a problem from a viewpoint of the space utilizing efficiency.
In known multi-item analyzers, a size of the reagent containers is usually determined such that it can contain a sufficient amount of a reagent a large amount of which is consumed, so that the number of reagent containers which can be set on the reagent table is limited and thus the number of items to be performed is also limited.